The Netmums Podcast - S12 Ep8: Ben Miller: Fatherhood, Fairytales and World Book Day

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

In this episode of The Netmums Podcast, hosts Wendy Golledge and Alison Perry chat to the multi-talented Ben Miller. Known for his work in "The Armstrong and Miller Show," "Death in Paradise," and "Bridgerton," Ben is also a bestselling children's author. His latest book, "Diary of a Big Bad Wolf," turns classic fairytales on their heads, offering a fresh perspective from the eyes of infamous characters. Ben delves into his World Book Day woes with his daughter's costume choices, the challenges of raising teenagers, and the profound impact of reading on children’s developing brains. He also shares the heartwarming moments of meeting his young readers and the importance of humour in children's literature. Ben also lets us in on an ambition for the future: his coffee cart dream! Not only that, Wendy and Alison get a barista lesson and debate who’s coffee order is the most sophisticated…  This brilliantly chatty episode is packed with laugh out loud moments (and you may just get some inspiration for World Book Day costumes which is great news if you’re a competitive fancy dress parent like Ben!) Ben’s latest book ‘Diary of a Big Bad Wolf’ is out on 14th March 2024 and available to pre-order now - find out more about this and all of Ben’s other children’s books here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/authors/Ben-Miller/100920632 Follow Ben on Instagram: @actualbenmiller Stay connected with Netmums for more parenting tips, community support, engaging content: Website: netmums.com / Instagram: @netmums 

You're listening to The Netmums Podcast with me, Wendy Gollich, and me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show... I said, what book is that from? She said, Daddy, it's not from a book. I just like Red Pandas. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. She said, well, I've written a book about Red Pandas. I said, that's not the point. Doesn't matter if you've written a book. I mean, yeah, great. That's not going to help us on World Book Day is it? Hello Netmums pod people I want to talk about World Book Day we're recording this at the beginning of March the very beginning of March which means World Book Day is round the corner

now Grace has decided this year for those of you who don't know Grace is eight she has decided to go as the goddess of night Nyx from Who Let the Gods Out which is much better than what she wanted to go as a couple of days ago which was Virgo from Who Let the Gods Out which would have required silver hair and I'm going away and leaving her father to do World Book Day. So lack of silver hair is quite appreciated. Alison, what are the twins going as? We've got one hungry caterpillar and we've got one Matilda. And we didn't have a Matilda costume,

so I really wanted to use something we already had or borrow something and just like reuse rather than buying new but I've ended up succumbing to the pressure and bought her a Matilda costume so I'm sorry Matilda just wears jeans and a t-shirt no but there is like a Matilda costume which is like a blue dress and a white cardigan and white tights and like school shoes and a red hairband it's from like the 80s film rather than the recent one. So yeah, I succumbed and went on to Matalan and spent like 15 quid. And I just feel like the worst eco-friendly parent

in the world. So nevermind. Well, I want to ask our guest what he is dressing up as, but I think you'd better do the showbiz intro first of all. Let's do it, let's do it. Because today on the Netmums podcast, we are thrilled to welcome ben miller whose career spans acting comedy and writing best known for tv shows like the armstrong and miller show death in paradise and bridgerton he's also a best-selling

he's also a best-selling children's author his His new book, Diary of a Big Bad Wolf, is a very funny look at traditional fairy tale characters. Ben, welcome to the Netmums podcast. This is so funny. I was on... Hello. Hello, Ben. Hello, by the way. This is so funny. I was on... Of course, I was on Amazon last night

because Lana, my eight-year-old decided she wanted to go as frida carlo and i'm and this is how out of touch i am i i i go on amazon i put in frida carlo carlo costume kids you know i, talk about the naivety. Of course, sort of what comes up is, I mean, horrific, frankly. But nothing, all kinds of Mexican stuff. None of it Frida Kahlo. So then, of course, I'm doing that last minute World Book Day. How did I get myself in this situation? I've known about this for months.

I'm finding, I found a skirt. I'm looking at pictures of Frida Kahlo. It's about 11 o'clock. Pictures of Frida Kahlo because she wears flowers in her hair. She wears big jewellery. You know, she's got, I found something, a sort of skirt. And I found a blouse that looks quite Frida Kahlo. It's about 11 o'clock. Pictures of Frida Kahlo. She wears flowers in her hair. She wears big jewellery. You know, she's got, I found something, a sort of a skirt

and I found a blouse that looks quite Frida Kahlo-ish. What I can't find is the unibrow. Well, this is it. It's called an eyebrow pencil. Just go and buy a black eyebrow pencil. Yeah, you might as well draw it on. Or Sharpie.

A Sharpie. The day Daddy drew on my eyebrows with a sharpie that's what you daddy drew on my eyebrows the sharpie that could be my next book yeah yeah i have to say i'm i'm finding myself turning into a bit of a world book day scrooge like i love the concept of it and i love the idea behind it and encouraging kids to read. But the whole dressing up at schools thing, I'm quite a few years down the line with doing it. My eldest is 13 and I'm just a bit over it. And I really like what your school has done in the past, Wendy. You were saying that they encourage the kids to come in wearing pyjamas

and bring their favourite book. And it feels like, okay, that's not putting pressure on parents, but still encouraging the reading. I'm not a competitive parent, but I am competitive about World book day so i'm like delighted i don't know what it is about world book day so happy she's chosen frida kahlo because frankly you're not going to get the prize for um you know i don't know uh a character from harry potter or something or something so to me this was this was uh this was an exciting moment because it was like, okay, so we've got a shot at this.

She's picked a character, I was thinking actually, that there isn't a sort of off-the-peg fancy dress for. I'm going to have to, you know, what does it get? The Sharpie hat. Sharpie. I'm going to have to be a bit creative because I think the prize also goes slightly for creativity. Do you know what I mean?

It's, you know, to be fair, to really be in the running. You can see how wrong I've got, you know. Well, you might have already answered my next question. So there's actor Ben, there's author Ben, there's comedian Ben. And I was going to say, what kind of dad is daddy Ben? But clearly he's a World Book Day competitive dad. So competitive dad. I suppose it is the actor coming out of me.

It's the actor coming out of me, I think. Because I kind of, Alana is also quite interacting. And she did say quite late last night that she should have changed her mind and wanted to go as a red panda and i'm like no that is you're not gonna get a prize for going as a red panda no red panda is off the table which book is that from is that from the disney well exactly i said what book is that from she said daddy it's not from a book i just like red pandas i'm like no no no no no she said well i've written a book about red pandas i said that's not the point doesn't matter

if you've written a book i mean it's impressive yeah great that's not gonna help us on world book day is it i said you've got to pick you know what happened to frida carlo what happened to frida carlo he What happened to Frida Kahlo? You said you wanted to go as Frida Kahlo. And so eventually she cracked and, yeah. You're going to have to tell us if you win now. I'm going to be on tent hooks next week. Yeah, we need to know.

We need to know. So, Ben, Wendy and I, we are older girls, are kind of 12 and 13. And every guest that comes on who has got older kids, we try and glean some sort of parenting wisdom from them. So your eldest is in his late teens, isn't he? So I feel like... He's turning 18 in the summer, yeah.

You must have something, some sort of wisdom that you can pass on to us and parents listening who haven't quite yet got into the teenage years. Hit us with it, please. Well, it's funny, isn't it? I think, first of all, I want to preface this by saying, before I came on the show, I was thinking, and I think only a parent would do this. I was thinking, oh, am I qualified to talk about parenting?

I mean, I have, yeah, I literally have one son who's nearly 18. We're taking him to look at a university tomorrow. You know, I've got an eight-year-old, a 12-year-old. Done a lot of parenting, but you never sort of feel, I don't anyway, feel qualified to give any advice all i can say is what's surprised me was particularly my son my 18 year old son just didn't speak we used to call him silent bob from about the age of 14 to 16 and a half maybe he just really didn't speak you could ask him any you know you could subjects you could talk to try and talk to him about subjects you knew he was interested in or, you know, what did you do yesterday, what happened at school?

You know, you'd get back from a holiday and you'd say, what do you think of Thailand? And there would be no answer. It was just like complete silent bop. And then overnight he became a grown-up. It was the strangest thing. And then suddenly in conversations he feels older than me it feels like i should be asking him for advice he's quite sorted about a lot of stuff

like i just think it's just very very i think you just never know what you're going to get and i think it just keeps changing doesn't it it just it just keeps changing completely but I um have been amazed with how he has um changed over the last couple of years he also got an ADHD diagnosis he started taking medication about 18 months ago and I think that might be part of it he's the one of the youngest in his years he's got July birthdays though he's almost a year younger than some of the other kids in his year and I think that probably damaged his confidence for a while um but it's been it's been really uh it's been really fascinating that's the first thing I do the changes that happen are so dramatic sometimes and you don't really know where they come from the second thing is I don't

really know what what our part as parents in that was. You know, I don't know that it was anything, really. I mean, it just felt like, it's a bit like that, you know, Hans Christian Andersen story, you know, The Ugly Duckling, sort of overnight just became this beautiful swan. And you don't, you feel like maybe that's just, you know like maybe that's just you know maybe that's just our nature you know that we kind of go into this it's a strange phase the uh those adolescent years isn't it you know you're just on the brink of it aren't you you know you go into this um you go into this really extraordinary phase because i've i i i love teenagers by the, because I can remember my own teenage years so vividly.

It's really, I think, helped me as a parent because I really identify with all my kids. I've never really grown up. But I think particularly with the teenager, I remember those years really, really well. I, in all honesty, don't really remember what it was like to be four, but I do remember what it was like to be 14. Have you read Quentin Blake's book called Zagazoo? No. Sounds brilliant. So it's the picture book version of The Ugly Duckling, basically. And it's this wonderful book that exactly exemplifies what you've just said. This lovely couple meet and then some someone

drops a baby out of the sky and they look after this baby and then one day the baby turns into a Tasmanian devil and then the next day the baby turns into kind of this big hairy sloth like thing and then it goes through all of the things the baby turns into as toddlerhood and young baby. And then one day the baby comes downstairs and offers them a cup of tea and is a perfectly lovely human. And they've turned into two clattering, chattering stalks. And I just, I buy it for every new parent. It's my kind of go-to new parent gift because it's exactly what you've just said you kind of go through these phases where oh look today they're a Tasmanian devil and then suddenly they're a swan it's just I think it's such a good description and you have these

conversations amongst yourselves don't you sort of say well maybe it's hormones do they have a lot of hormones at this age and and then they start behaving in a slightly different way, talking about your seven-year-old or something. And then, I don't know, then some other weird phase begins when they're nine and a half. And you think, well, things have changed a bit at school. Their friendship group has changed. Maybe that's causing them.

Maybe that's unsettling them the truth is i i i honestly don't know whether we just search for reasons and and can't really because we can't really deal with the fact that human beings are so extraordinary and so unpredictable and so complex we can't ever really you can't you know you can't parrot it sort of trying to get to say is sort of parroting is kind of an impossible task isn't it certainly is from my from where i stand because what you what you hope yourself to be capable of what you are actually able to achieve there's such a huge difference between the two um that i don't know.

I always, yes, you sort of feel always slightly unqualified. And I wonder if your job really is just as a witness. Just roll with the punches. You know, it's basically just so you can just tell them, you know, basically just fill them in on what happened when they were when they were just sleeping for three years i was speaking to a coach like a certified coach the other day and she was saying that as long as you get it right parenting wise 20 to 30 percent of the time then you're gonna they'll be okay like that i feel like that's a really reassuring piece of information to have like

you're not expected to get it right 100 of the time i was like okay i can do that does sound more manageable i think it when faced with any task i think thinking if i'm going to complete 20 to 30 percent of this that's probably quite a good that's quite a good it's a good thing to aim for do you run your book ideas past the kids ben before pitching them to the publishers and what do you do if they say no dad that i just don't bother with it i mean i i do i know i i try all the ideas out on them i not only that i pay real attention to what they like to read and what they talk about in the car and what they're learning at school and what their sort of areas of interest are. You know, kids are pretty, you know, lots of kids get very enthusiastic. I remember Harrison, for example, having a time when he was completely obsessed with pirates.

You know, and he would like watch, love to read pirate stories and dress up as a pirate. And you kind of think, and I always think with something like that, well, that's interesting. It's interesting that kids really like pirates. I like pirates too. I loved pirate stories when I was a kid. What kind of pirate story would I have really liked to have read? So I kind of approach it in sort of both ways. I think about what I would have liked to have read when I was that age because I absolutely loved reading when I was a kid. And I really got going when I, you know, sort of about, I think I was about nine years old.

And I really, really got going and I really got into books. And having my parents being English teachers, there were lots of, and having a brilliant local library. There were lots of fantastic books around so um i also have a really great um store of books that i loved when i was a kid that i also give to them to see if those kind of stories and those kind of themes interest them but i really look for what interest kids interests kids first and then um try and find what i'm what my excitement is within that you know within that kind of in that kind of story. I always love fairy tales. So at the moment, I'm writing these books. So I've got a book called The Diary of a Big Bad Wolf, basically, because I want to tell fairy tales from a sort of new point of view.

And the reason for that is my kids love fairy tales. I think fairy tales do something. Fairy tales not only are about magic, but they are magical. They have a magical effect on our sound on children. It's really fabulous little lessons in fairy tales. Obviously, the main lesson of it often being that, you know, kids don't need grownups. They can they can do things very well for themselves. Thank you very much.

They're quite empowering fairy tales. I think that's one of the reasons kids love them. But I also, you know, really enjoy them myself. And so when I'm having an idea, like for Diary of a Big Bad Wolf, I'll just say, you know, what do you think of this? What do you know about the story of Little Red Riding Hood? What do you like about that? You know, what do you like about that story? what do you think of this what do you know about the story of little red riding hood what do you like about that other you know what do you like about that story what do you think of the wolf you know i think the whole retelling of fairy tale stories is such such a

brilliant way of just i guess refreshing old stories um tell us a bit more about your new book diary of a big bad wolf so i've got to say it sounds absolutely brilliant so my idea is for last few christmases i've written um three diaries of christmas elves so um it's really again you know they're the sort of the story of christmas really told through the eyes of one of the uh a couple of the elves that work in santa's workshop and um i really really love the diary form I was just really I've always loved sort of Adrian Mole and um Bridget Jones and um those sort of it's I just find those diaries very very funny um I thought I really wanted to do something a bit like the Lady Bird series I wanted to sort of retell fairy tales for kids um and then I thought um I thought it would be a wonderful thing if I could write the diaries

of not the main characters because we tend to tell Little Red Riding Hood from the point of view of Little Red but I was thinking wouldn't it be fun to hear that story from the point of view of the wolf what was going through his mind

what was he thinking when he thought he could dress up as grandma? Yeah, exactly. What was going through his mind when he came up with that plan? And, yeah, that was really – it's been really fun, actually. And I'm also working with an amazing illustrator called Elisa Paganelli who really brings the stories to life. And I can't, you know, I can't express really how amazing it is to see her drawings and to work those back into the story. And that's a big part of it as well.

You know, it's not just children that really, really, particularly at this age that I'm writing for, which is sort of eight to 12, they really have a very different relationship with pictures than grownups do. And it's so important that they've got that element as well, I think. So what inspired you? How did you get from... Oh, I'm knocking everything over on my desk, sorry. How did you get from Death in Paradise to writing children's books?

It sounded like a medicine ball. It sounded like you got a medicine ball on there. Just a notebook. No, just a notebook. From Death in Paradise to writing children's books. I think, well, when I was doing Death in Paradise, I was also writing books, but I was writing science books. I wrote a few nonfiction-fiction books I wrote one

called it's not rocket science which is kind of science for creative people and then I wrote quite a kind of um I think I was having a bit of a midlife crisis frankly and I wrote a story I wrote a book about um the search for extraterrestrial intelligence using science so using our telescopes and using what we know about biology to try and figure out what alien life forms would look like slightly different to buying a ferrari yeah okay yeah exactly or starting an artisanal cheese shop but yes yeah my middle-aged fantasy now is is funny enough i was having a coffee cart i don't know why this keeps going to me i kind of think i'd really like to have speaking of death in paradise let's have a coffee cart

and on the coffee cart i would like to sell the coffee that they have in guadalupe which is the best coffee i've ever drunk on death in if you want to know why death in paradise is such a good show it's because everyone is completely off their tits on guadalupe coffee everyone's just quite high energy on it uh because the show basically runs on this amazing coffee that they have caffeine essentially not just any old caffeine but the caffeine from guadalupe which is just extraordinary. And where were we? Yeah, so my midlife crisis was writing science books. And then I was at a book festival chatting idly, I have to say, to a man called Luigi Bonomi in the library, in the library, in the lobby, who turned out to be a book agent. And he asked me if I'd ever thought of writing a children's book.

And I said, well, funnily enough, this was true. I'd written a little Christmas story for my oldest son. And I'd read it to him every Christmas. Because basically when he was nine, he told me he wasn't sure he believed in Father Christmas anymore. So I thought, well, I've got to write a story that convinces him. So we get a few more years out of this. And so I read him this story every Christmas and I sent that to Luigi. And he said, well, maybe I think that maybe this could be a children's book.

And that became my first story. That's so lovely. Now, it's got to be said, celebrity authors do get a bit of flack from other authors, especially children's celebrity authors. Does that bother you or are you just too busy writing, working, counting all of your millions to even take notice of what people are saying? Yeah. Can we just talk about the coffee cart instead? What I think is it's a little van, and I think that it's got, you know, I think you open the doors at the back.

Has it got a bike on the front? Do you have to, like, pedal yourself? Oh, that would be amazing. But I think if it does, it's just for show. Okay. And you open the doors at the back, and there's the little machine, and there's me in some sort of apron. Always a pinny. I have a penny a pin you know what i mean but a kind of um a kind of uh checked penny yeah thank you a

checked penny um basically serving up mainly piccolos which is my favorite uh type of coffee um i think on the what's a piccolo i haven't heard of a piccolo oh a piccolo since i discovered this in australia i've just been filming i'm just showing off really because i've just been to australia filming they they don't have you know cortados or you have a bit of milk in your coffee so it's okay so let's just wind it right back a bit less i know what latte is are. Are we in the right ballpark? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, dear me, dear me.

Oh, my goodness. No, so wind it right back to an espresso. So you've got an espresso. Then you can add some foam and that's a macchiato. And then if you add about the same amount of milk as there is coffee, that's a piccolo. Then if you add a little bit more milk that's a cortado and then you know it's a bit like those stages of man um way down on the right hand side

you've got a latte um yeah right okay so i like i i like a very evolved coffee you like a less evolved coffee is that what you're saying i'm no i'm yeah exactly yeah exactly a primitive you know yeah so i'm like yeah that's very good i'm a neanderthal man coffee neanderthal coffee that's what i am i'm a neanderthal coffee you do know your stuff about coffee ben i if you haven't but by the end of this year if you haven't opened up this coffee car i'm going to be very disappointed. And if there's no penny, I'm really not happy. I've actually done a barista course. That's how serious I am. I did a barista course at the end of last year.

Wow. It's going to happen. Now, can I tell you something? My husband hates coffee. It's a point of severe contention in our marriage and i'm swearing hard here but he basically he bought me a coffee machine because he hates queuing in coffee shops and so then he bought me this coffee machine he was like thing is i've just brought the wittery of coffee into my own kitchen so but you are a man who loves the quittery of coffee you see i do i do i'm with him about the

coffee shops though it's a bit like pharmacies isn't it you think what are you doing behind there you know i mean at least in a coffee shop they are actually making a drink whereas in a pharmacy you just think all you've got to do is get that out of a drawer i don't see why this takes 25 minutes but anyway they always disappear around the back at my pharmacy and I think they're just hiding. Yeah, they're not even in the bit where the medicines are. Maybe they're having a Cortado. They've got a coffee machine out there and they've got a little bit card

and they're thinking, what's a Cortado again? I've forgotten what the question was. I'm going to give you a very honest answer to your question uh about celebrity authors i get very hurt when i i read things like that i i feel on the one hand i feel um slightly misunderstood by that because i kind of think i have been a writer all my life i spent all my life writing you know i wrote comedy um and then wrote comedy for other people then wrote comedy for myself then you know and i wrote radio shows tv shows i've written films i've you know i've written non-fiction you know and then i i love

kids and i love children's stories so and i wrote a story for my son and then started you know it all began very organically for me um and so there's that on the on the one hand and then and then I kind of think there's always going to be somebody who's who objects to what you're doing and after I've sort of considered it for a little bit usually in the shower in the morning having read because these articles occur most mornings i kind of think to myself well how unoriginal of you to have written this article again about about you know celebrity books and and when you really look at this it does it's all a bit of nonsense anyway david walliams is a very successful uh children's author uh is he is does the kids buy his books because because he's a celebrity i don't think so mine didn't mine had no idea and i love them

yeah my my kids love his books and if i I say to them, oh, do you know, he used to be a, you know, he's actually a comedian and he used to do sketch comedy. They look at me like I'm from another planet. And they say that so couldn't be less interested. And also I would make the argument, you just say, is Stephen King a celebrity author? Because he's become famous

through writing lots of very popular books. And when he publishes a book, we get to hear about it a lot, don't we? Because he's famous. Is he a celebrity author? Because he got famous writing books. So surely that's, is that okay? But I don't know. I just, it's all a bit of a nonsense, just uh it's a it's all a bit of a

nonsense isn't it really it's all a bit of a nonsense i think um we can all find so many reasons not to do our creative work and i think once i start um letting other people get in my head as i clearly have done there's no hope for me and i haven't helped by asking you about it to be fair, Ben. No, but it's a good question. I like questions like that. I like questions like that because they make you stand up and be counted, don't they?

You kind of think, well, what are my reasons for doing this? Do I stand by those reasons? And also, where's the opinion coming from? Is it coming from somebody who is a novelist and writes lots of books, or is it just coming from somebody who's got a slightly different agenda? What do you think?

I think that I can kind of understand people who have been like slogging away trying to write children's book for years feeling like oh i'll walk into wh smith and suddenly it's like all david williams and it's all celebrity authors and they've got their book deals because they've got a platform already but equally what you've just said is very convincing and i feel and i feel bad for having ever thought it took me five years to write my first book i have to say it wasn't easy to write i think the first one's quite hard very hard to do um yeah so where does midnight come into this where because my daughter and i read how i became a dog called midnight and she is obsessed with dogs so this was the one we had to read and we have a dog called Hector and she went through a period of about six weeks which is

how long she was in the very early reader stage she was about six so we were reading it really slowly and she kept trying to call Hector Midnight for the whole book and of course Hector is like what there is Midnight he doesn't answer when you call him Hector, so he sure as hell doesn't answer when you call him midnight. What type of dog is Hector? He's a three-legged golden retriever. Oh, golden retriever. I've got a golden doodle, a golden retriever.

It's a poodle. But I loved how funny it was. That was for me. Oh, thank you. And I wanted to ask if that humour is, it's obviously it runs through all of your books, but trying to get a seven-year-old to read, it's really important that it's funny

because it keeps them going. I think, yeah, so Midnight was my fourth book, basically. I wrote a book for each of my children. I wrote a book for Jackson, which is The Night I Met Father Christmas. That was based on the original story. Then I wrote one with Harrison as the main character, called The Boy Who Made the World Disappear. Then I wrote one for Lana called The Day I Fell Into a Fairy Tale.

They are the main characters in those stories. But obviously after three books, I then ran out of children. So then I decided I'd write a story about our dog and we had um our dog wasn't called Midnight but she was enormous and she was a um they're called Black Russian Terriers BRTs or Russian Bear Terriers sometimes and her mother had been called Midnight and she was just enormous I used to kind of look at her thinking you look a bit like a man in a bear suit and I was thinking wouldn't it be wouldn't it be funny if if somebody swapped bodies with a dog and I've always loved dogs and I've

always as a kid I always wanted to become other animals and I was thinking wouldn't it be amazing to do a body swap story about uh rather than doing the sort of Freaky Friday story where because that, you know, those body swaps already exist between people. I thought it would be fun to do one between a boy and a dog. And also, I just thought it would be it would be funny because the world from a dog's the world. If you're a boy inside a dog then that's very very funny because you can't talk to anybody and you can't and if you're even funnier to be a dog inside a boy who's suddenly capable of getting out anything they want from the fridge or um suddenly feels the temptation to snuff another sniff another person's bottom you know all the

rest of it i just thought well this this could be really really fun but so you're right i mean i love to have um i love the stories to be entertaining i love them to be funny because i think that is very important for children of this age but i also like there to be some sort of um meaning to it as well and some sort of um message the one in that case being don't swap bodies with a dog. Very important message, isn't it? So Ben, as an author, what is it like promoting literacy and a love of reading among children? I mean, Wendy's just said that age six, which is I think really young to be reading one of these books. So that's pretty impressive.

It must be amazing to hear that these kids are getting into reading and loving reading because of your books i mean it's uh it's extraordinary i don't think we still really understand why reading is so um important for children but what seems to be the case is that reading physical books as well is more beneficial than reading on screens. Something to do with the way your brain processes information. And one of the theories that's bandied about, I don't know how well tested it is, is that as humans, we never evolved to read, really. We can't read. It takes a lot of time and effort for us to learn to read. That five, six years old when you're just picking up your first chapter books

and you're trying to make sense of a story through the print on a page. What is going on, apparently apparently is your brain is being completely rewired your brain is having to completely rewire itself in order to do that to do that task so one of the reasons i mean there's so many great things kids get from reading they learn about the world they learn empathy that you know there's um it's obviously we all communicate using the printed words. So that's tremendously useful in later life. But apparently one of the most important things about it is that your brain is being reconfigured and is then capable of doing tasks later in life it never could have done if it hadn't been rewired in order to read wow so we think that's what's going on um certainly the evidence that's a hard theory to prove obviously but you know certainly the

evidence seems to bear it out and that the outcomes for children if if they're if they read and if they are read to, the outcomes for children are just so good if they keep up with their reading. And obviously, there's a lot of other things connected with that. It's the types of families that tend to read that to do with rewiring your brain in order to read and therefore having smarts that you otherwise wouldn't have in in later life what's it like meeting the kids super fans because I guess it's quite different to meeting your adult fans it melt your heart honestly you can you because you you sort of um it's just so moving i'm doing some school visits next week and you go and you it's fantastic it's a lot please tell me your dressing is free to come maybe that's what it is she shouldn't dress as her you might have to

or surely you've got to go as the big bad wolf i've got to go as the big bad wolf i have been looking for a costume actually online and that i can't i haven't found one yet this doesn't mean that it doesn't mean there's not one out there the um i think uh you know you give the talk and it's obviously it's really really fun and the kids get very involved. But then often I'll meet them afterwards. And it's like you say, the super readers, the kids who've got all your books and they want to talk to you about the characters. And at some point they might say something like, I wasn't interested in reading until I read one of your books. And now I read a lot.

And then you can't. It's hard to keep it together, frankly, because. Wobbly lip. Yeah, really wobbly lip time. And they are, I mean, it's. I love my readers. For sure. I love their imaginations.

I love their enthusiasm. But I really, really love the fact that you know at the age that i write for there's not a whiff of cynicism there's nothing cynical about them they're just very very open-hearted and they want to learn about the world they want to um they're smart they've got all the reasoning and um logic that they might have in later life. They also, they're capable of living in their imaginations in a way that, you know, when we get a bit older, we probably aren't quite, we don't find it that easy to do. And it's just because you know it much you want your own kids to read and get into books and when that when another when you know when a you know when a child says that they love your books and they can't wait wait to read the next one it's just it's it's it's very very fulfilling and I think that was

one of the things that I um really connected with earlier on and I guess I don't know some part you know as I say my parents were teachers and you know education was an incredibly important thing particularly on the Welsh side of my family I was obsessed with education my auntie became a teacher as well and I think there's some element of that as well, as we feel like, you know, the power and the strength of education and how important that is. And the sense of possibility, you know, when kids start reading for themselves, they become that magical thing, the motivated self reader. Then the world is their oyster, isn't it really? Yeah, it is. So before we let you go can we briefly talk about the wealth of tv and film work that you've done it's really hard to pick a

favorite i've already mentioned death and paradise but there's also paddington bridgerton johnny english wendy what's your favorite ben miller work well i'm going to be honest. I love Bridgerton, but it's not necessarily because of Ben. Can I say, I had no idea all that was going on when I was on set. Really? Absolutely no idea. Well, think about, I thought it was a sort of drawing room. I thought it was a drawing room drama, you know, maybe about boxing. Well, it happened in the drawing room.

Yeah, I'm sure it happened everywhere from what I heard. But I think, I think, I just, I mean, I was amazed. It was a bit like discovering that all your friends at school have had a party and you've not been invited. So maybe Bridgerton. Death in Paradise reminds me of times that my dad loves Death in Paradise, so we'd sit and watch that together. But I think maybe Bridgerton and always Paddington. Paz is.

Yeah. Do you know what? I think it's a bit random, but I'm going to go with Moving Wallpaper, which was like the late noughties ITV comedy. you heard of it i love that i was gutted when they cancelled that i think it was ahead of its time i think it was ahead of its time i think that if it came back now it would be massive so what's your favorite my favorite um favourite is a show called The Worst Week of My Life, which I really enjoy, that was on BBC One that I did with Alison Steadman.

She played my mother-in-law. It was just very, very fun. Basically, the sort of set-up was that I was this really sort of, I was the son-in-law, the sort of hapless son-in-law who would just cause absolute mayhem in this absolutely sort of idyllic kind of world that my parents-in-law inhabited. You know, he's a judge and she was a kind of a sort of lady who lunches. And, you know, my wife's family was sort of quite posh and I wasn't posh. And I kept, you know, it's kind of a slapstick comedy, basically, where I continually do things like,

you know, get drunk and climb into bed with my mother-in-law by mistake. It's really fun. I like that one and i have to say as well i love the show that i'm doing at the moment professor t is a really good crime drama on itv a very complex character you know professor of criminology who helps the police solve you know these sort of baffling crimes it's all set in cambridge which is very beautiful it's kind of yeah that's that's also really fun to do so what's next yeah books film

acting what's coming up well we're about to go film another series of professor t that's just just about to come on the series season three is just about to start and season four we're about to start filming but maybe the next thing to come out would be I've been working on this comedy show in Australia

the main character is played by Michael Theo from Love on the Spectrum I don't know if you've seen that show but he's just one of the standout you know standout characters in Love on the Spectrum and you know he's playing a sort of I guess a version of himself and the sort of premise is that I go to Australia on a book tour and he turns up to one of my book events and tells me he's my son. And I then sort of have to sort of, you know,

I said, I mean, I'm married and I've got a grown up daughter and there seems to be some sort of overlap with his mother and the mother of my daughter. So it all gets a bit, daughter so it all gets a bit um yeah it all gets a bit fraught complicated it sounds good i can't wait for that um well ben thank you so much for joining us today it's been wonderful to chat to you and to talk coffee and midlife crisis and all sorts um and obviously your writing and your book

um and all your TV work. So thank you so much. Oh, thank you. I've really, really enjoyed it. I must say, the castles. Can people see this castle? People can see your castle, don't you worry. Hired for the podcast.

It looks like you're in an act. Where's your tankard of mead? There's definitely a wench somewhere with a tankard of mead. We're back to Bridgerton, see? Look, it all comes back to Bridgerton.